The priory, church, and manor of Harmondsworth, near West Drayton, in Middlesex, with its subinfeudations of Padbury's, Barnard's, and Ludington's, belonged to the Benedictine convent of the Holy Trinity and St. Katherine at Rouen. Who gave them to that house I know not. Tanner merely says that the priory was a cell to the monastery at Rouen, and Dugdale is not more explicit. I see by the presentment of a Middlesex jury in Michaelmas Term, 44 Edward III., that Robert, then prior of Harmondsworth, held the church and two carucates of land by the gift of one (they do not say which) of the king's progenitors by the tenure of distributing weekly amongst the poor of the place three bushels of “wastyl” or best bread. The prior was indicted for that he had failed to distribute the bread during the last twenty years, and he pleaded, with what result does not appear, a charter of Privileges granted to the monks at Rouen by Henry II. and confirmed by Henry III. and Edward I.:

Henricus Dei gracia Rex Anglie dux Normannie et Aquitanie et comes Andigavie archiepiscopis, etc. Salutem. Sciatis nos concessisse et presenti Carta confirmasse Abbati et Monachis Sancte Trinitatis sancteque Katherine de Monte Eothomagensi omnes donaciones elemosinarum terrarum et hominura, que facte sunt eis tarn in ecclesiis quam in rebus et possessionibus mundanis. Quare volumus et firmiter precipimus quod dicti Abbas et monachi et ministri eorum teneant et habeant omnes elemosinas et possessiones suos cum sacha et sacca et thol et theam et Infangeneþief cum omnibus libertatibus et liberis consue tudinibus et quietanciis suis in bosco et piano et pratis et pasturis in mariscis et piscariis in vivariis et stagnis. In aquis et molendinis. In virgultis et grangiis extra burgum et infra. In viis et semitis et in omnibus aliis rebus et aliis locis quietas liberas et solutas. de Sirra. et de liundredo et placitis et querelis et de murdro et de wapentaoha et scutagio et geldis et danegeldis. et assisis. et hidagiis. et de operacionibus pontium. et Castellorum et de Lerwite et de Hengewite et fleamcameswite. et de Blodewite et de fithwite. et de auerpeny. et hundredespeny et de Wardepeny. et quietas de omni Pontagio thelonio et passagio et lestagio et stalagio et de omni servicio seculari et servili opere et exaccione et de omnibus occasionibus et secularibus consuetudinibue. excepta sola justicia mortis et membroruni.

About a mile and a half south from Penrith on the main road from Carlisle to York and on the Westmorland side of the river Eamont, which is the boundary between the two counties, stand the ruins of Brougham Castle, one of the most important strongholds of the great Clifford family, who owned no less than four castles in the county, namely, Brougham, Appleby, Brough (under Stanmore), and Pendragon, and also Skipton in Craven, Yorkshire. From comparatively early times the site of this castle has been a place of some importance, as the Romans had here a strong camp, the remains of which are still to be seen in the field to the south of the present building. The name of this camp was Brovacum, but it has been spelt in various ways. It was a rectangular parallelogram surrounded by a single ditch about 75 feet broad with rounded corners, and had a rampart on the inside. There has also been a berm or terrace between this rampart and the ditch below the main defensive works, which were of timber. No trace of the entries to the camp now remain. The ditch on the south side is still complete, and portions on the east and west. Mr. Gr. T. Clark, in a paper in the Proceedings of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archæological Society gives the area within the ditch as 113 yards by 134 yards at the present time, but says it was most likely 198 yards originally, as that was the proportion of the Brough camp. The reason for placing this camp where it is was to guard the ford across the river Eamont where the road from York to Carlisle crossed that river. This ford I think was a little further down the stream than the present bridge, at a point where it is very shallow in summer, but during the winter and spring it must have been often dangerous and at times impassable. Of course the bed of the river may have been quite different in Roman times, but probably its course was much the same as at present. If I am right as to the site of the ford, the Roman road was continued in a straight line from about the Countess's Pillar to the brow of the hill above the river, down which it went at a sharp angle to the water, and then straight across the marshy field until it meets the road as traced by the ordnance surveyors. The camp stands on the south side of the river about 30 feet above it on flat land; and if Mr. Clark's suggestion as to the original size be correct its north-east corner was about 50 yards distant from it. On the opposite side for some considerable distance must have been marsh land, probably often flooded, whilst still further north rose the conspicuous hill now known as Penrith Beacon, under the southern flank of which the Roman road ran in an almost straight line to the next important camp, Voreda, near the village of Plumpton, about five miles north-north-west of Penrith. The camp was also, in all probability, approached by another road, which ran past the present Brougham Hall and across the river Lowther near the bridge and on to Yanwath, where it joined the road that goes over High Street, Avhich in places attained an elevation of 2,200 feet. A third road I think led to the camp from the south, going over Crosby Ravensworth Fell and so on to Lancaster. The main road all the way from Brough Castle to Carlisle is a most wonderful piece of engineering, when the probable condition of the country when the Romans made it is considered. Its gradients are seldom excessively steep, and yet it keeps an almost straight line for miles; and this was surveyed and made at a time when the whole country was a dense forest and the surrounding hills inhabited by a warlike and hostile race. It is rather surprising, considering the military importance of Brovacum, that it has not yielded more important monuments than it seems to have done. Stukeley mentions that he saw many fragments of altars and inscriptions at the Hall (Brougham Hall), and in the wall by the Roman road beyond the castle and near the Countess's Pillar a pretty “buste,” part of a funeral monument, and further on another bas-relievo much defaced, so that in his time perhaps there were some monuments which are now lost; but Chancellor Ferguson in his History of Westmorland says it “has not yielded many inscribed stones, and those not of any great importance. A couple of altars to the local deity Belatucador and four or five fragments of tombstones.” A portion of an inscription remains on a slab in the ceiling of a doorway passage leading to the second floor of the keep; the only word I could read for certain was Titus.

It is by the kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's that I exhibit the charter on the table. This document is a grant, by the Prior of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem in England and the Chapter, of the church of Broxbourne, Herts, to the Bishop of London for a yearly payment of four marcs.

The charter is sealed, and it bears the date of 1190, a date which, as I shall explain, is of some historical consequence. Although calendared so far back as 1883 by my friend Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte in his valuable report on the muniments at St. Paul's, the charter seems to have been overlooked, for it was not found in that great repertory of all the charters of the Order, published by M. Delaville Le Roulx, although he endeavoured to include all those that are in England.

The excavations which were made in June and July of 1902 were included in the report of the work done in 1901.

The excavations, of which the results are now to be reported, did not begin until 11th August and were continued until October. The greater part of House No. 4 had, however, been excavated in 1900, but our description of it was postponed until the whole should have been brought to light.

The beautiful ivory carving exhibited by the Rev. A. H. Williams (Plate XXVII.) is not only an object of great rarity, but is of exceptional interest from the fact that it is an altogether admirable example of the work of our Saxon ancestors before the Norman Conquest. Although from age and long burial much of its original glory has vanished, enough remains to excite admiration at the cunning skill of the craftsman who fashioned it.

I have the honour of laying before the Society, on behalf of my colleagues, a report of the operations carried out by the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund during the year 1902, being the thirteenth successive season of the systematic exploration of the site.

The pyx illustrated in Plate XXXIII., and acquired by the British Museum in the present year, was formerly in the possession of the Reverend Walter Sneyd, of Keele Hall, where it had been preserved for about half a century. It was exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester in 1857 and again at South Kensington in 1862, has been figured, though imperfectly, by Grarrucci and Rohault de Fleury, and cast for the series issued by the Arundel Society.

The custom of washing the hands before the principal meal of the day, based, as it is, upon common decency and convenience, has at all times been observed by civilised people. The Greeks and Romans, or at any rate the more leisured and luxurious among them, not only took their baths before the chief meal, but had water for their hands brought round repeatedly during the meal, which would be the more necessary when the fingers were used in eating much more than they are now. The disciples of Christ were accused by the Pharisees and certain of the Scribes of transgressing the tradition of the elders by not washing their hands when they ate bread. The “tradition of the elders” is abundantly illustrated in the literature of the Jews, and similar traditions prevail among the Mohammedans and other Orientals. In religious minds the act of washing the hands has naturally acquired a symbolical meaning. Hence the Lavabo in the Eucharistic rite which i s described by Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 348-386) as not merely for the sake of personal cleanliness, but as a symbolic act, connected with the words of Psalm xxvi. 6, “I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so will I go to thine altar.”

It is my privilege to bring before you the results of the recent exploration of the Arbor Low Stone Circle. These excavations, organized by the Anthropological Section of the British Association, and carried out in 1901 and 1902, were conducted with a view of ascertaining the age of Stone Circles, a beginning, possibly, of a series of such explorations. The Committee appointed to control this work consisted of Dr. J. Gf. Grarson (Chairman), Mr. Henry Balfour (Secretary), Sir John Evans, Mr. C. H. Read, Professor R. Meldola, Mr. Arthur J. Evans, Dr. R. Munro, Professor Boyd Dawkins, and Mr. A. L. Lewis. The actual organization and direction of the work in the field was placed in my hands. The ground landlord, the Duke of Rutland, K.GL, the First Commissioner of Works (in whose charge, under the Ancient Monuments Act, the Circle is placed), and the tenant, readily gave their consent for the conducting of the exploration.

‘Soleo eniin et in aliena castra transire, non tamquam transfuga, sed tamquam explorator.’ Seneca, Epistul. Mor. I., Ep. II.

Some years ago it occurred to the author that certain submerged ruins in the Bay of Naples were sufficiently well preserved to repay investigation with a view to supplementing the history of the post-Roman land-movements, as recorded upon the columns of the Macellum of Puteoli, commonly known as the “Temple of Serapis.”

A writer on the subject of the ancient Library of the cathedral priory of St. Mary, Worcester, is confronted by unusual difficulties, in the dearth of documents which throw light on it. No catalogue of the books is preserved of a date anterior to about 1650, and this is an incomplete and very roughly made one. The library has been moved more than once, and the architecture of some of the buildings which contain it has been altered or renewed at subsequent periods. If reliance therefore is placed on external evidence alone, the history of the library would be most meagre and uncertain. Fortunately a good portion of the library itself remains, and tells something of its own history. Moreover, from a close examination of the existing buildings, of the chisel marks and varieties of stone, the architectural history can be to some extent collected.